


A Life Going Somewhere

by Aliax



Category: A Land Fit for Heroes - Richard Morgan
Genre: Alternate Universe, Anal, Dom!Seethlaw, IN SPACE!, Light BDSM, M/M, Oral Sex, Orgasm Control, Praise Kink, canon-typical sort-of-soulmates, mild exhibitionism kink, sub!Ringil
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-16
Updated: 2019-08-25
Packaged: 2020-09-02 04:48:52
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 17,916
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20270254
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Aliax/pseuds/Aliax
Summary: Ringil's life is going nowhere fast. What should have been a promising career never took off, because he can't seem to tame the side of himself who wants only to drown in drugs, sex and fights. At this point, he hopes for nothing, wants nothing, doesn't dare dream for anything, not even a satisfying long-term partner, because even in this, he's too... different.On this new hole he's been assigned to, at least, he can look forward to meeting the fabled Aldrain. That will be a change. Though running straight into two of them almost as soon as he's disembarked, how likely is that? And that one of them should seem to be exactly everything Ringil was always waiting for... How likely isthat!?





	1. Arrival

**Author's Note:**

> When life kicks me down, I write porn.
> 
> Not that I need an excuse to write porn, mind you.
> 
> Oh, and I'm still working on _Dal Segno al Coda_. The next chapters are just coming slooooowly, because I chose a narrative method which turned out to be a bigger bite than I could swallow, but I refuse to give it up!

Ringil Eskiath wasn't sure what to expect when he landed in Beksanara, on Ennishmin - and frankly, he couldn't be bothered to care. He'd been exiled - sorry, _'assigned on diplomatic missions'_ \- to quite a few strange places already, in his father's increasingly desperate attempts to get rid of his unmanageable, determined-to-be-scandalous youngest son. Not that it ever worked: events would unfold here on Ennishmin as they had done everywhere else, and soon enough, Ringil would be on his way to yet another more-or-less fictional job on some other backwater planet.

Still, the thought of Ennishmin had sparked a tiny flame of interest deep in his dejected mind when he'd first heard of it, and that curiosity hadn't died out yet. He had to admit that for the first time in years, he was in fact looking forward to exploring this new place he was being dumped into, if only because it was supposed to be even more alien than anything else he'd ever seen. It was, after all, the only place where you encountered the mythical dwenda, the Aldrain race, the only known alien species besides the Kiriath.

The black-skinned Kiriath were a common sight all over the explored universe: they had appeared one day out of nowhere, back when humanity had still been fumbling, trying to establish colonies in its own native solar system. Now, they were stranded in this quadrant of the galaxy due to what had turned out to be a navigational accident which they didn't know how to reverse. So instead, working together with the humans - or more accurately, to be honest, dragging the struggling-to-keep-up humans along for the ride - the Kiriath had expanded their reach much farther, and they were known to all human colons everywhere, if only for the half-living technology they always left behind when they decided to jump to yet another unexplored system.

The ivory-skinned Aldrain couldn't be more different. They were native to Ennishmin - or Hannais M'hen as they called it - and they had stayed there throughout the centuries since a Kiriath and human mission had first landed on their planet. In preparation for his new posting as "strategic military attaché" to the Beksanara Ambassador - never mind that humans had never been at war with anyone in this lonely hole of the galaxy - Ringil had read tourist guides, diplomatic notes, even scientific reports about the so-called dwenda, and none of them seemed to agree on even the shadow of a conclusion.

All that was known for sure was that they mingled easily enough with all visitors to their planet, but in turn, it was extremely rare to find one of them anywhere else. They didn't even have consulates on other worlds, choosing instead to let the human representatives in their own system do the communication work for them when they needed it.

Many said they were too xenophobic to want to mix with the other species, but those who had actually lived on Ennishmin called bullshit on this: most dwenda seemed to enjoy mixing with whoever came to them; they just insisted on doing it on their own terms and on their home turf. There were also some who said that unlike the humans and Kiriath, they were too scared, too squeamish to go exploring the universe, but now that _did_ sound xenophobic indeed, and again those who knew better always dismissed these theories with at best a shrug and at worst an annoyed huff. No, they said, the dwenda were no scaredy cats, and only someone who had never met one could think such a thing.

Quite logically, over time, this voluntary and unexplained isolation had lent them an aura of legend. It didn't help either that the records of them, whether stills, movings, or audios, all depicted beings far too beautiful and entrancing to be true. Their white skin was wrapped tight over a facial bone structure which was both so delicate and so perfect as to seem more like a sculpture than a living being. Their pitch-black eyes were as fascinating as the kaleidoscopic ones of the Kiriath. And their body proportions, while slightly unusual, were universally acknowledged as attractive at the very least.

Ringil would not have gone out of his way to meet those living legends, but since the opportunity had been handed to him on a silver platter, he had to admit if only to himself that he was more than a teeny bit excited. He had apparently successfully managed to hide this from both Egar and Archeth if their lack of reaction when he had told them about his new diplomatic detachment was any indication, but it was there nonetheless, lurking somewhere under the hardened layer of thoroughly dispirited boredom. His life may be going nowhere fast, but right here, right now, he had a little something interesting to look forward to.

_Grab whatever distraction you can, Gil, and try to make it last. Gods know you could use something to occupy your mind besides getting high on fake shit, brawling all over the place, or buggering as many men as you can._ He could almost hear his mother talking - except the Lady Ishil would never lower herself to mentioning his specific brand of sexual practises, so no, that was just his inner voice, reminding him once again of how he had failed everybody's hopes and expectations, starting with his own, and was now left with nothing but an eternal, aimless search for recreation - or dissipation, as his mother would probably call it.

* * *

As a planet, Ennishmin was easily one of the drabbest places Ringil had ever set foot on. It had only one sun, which you could hardly see since the skies were almost constantly overcast. The result was a peculiar impression of constant twilight; it was nearly midday when Ringil transitioned from the ship to the Beksanara - Ibiksinri in the local dialect - spaceport proper, and yet, anywhere else, he would have assumed it was either very early or very late.

He blinked as he noticed the sculpture sitting - or was that floating? - in the middle of the arrivals terminal. He'd read about and heard of those, but he realised now that he had seriously misunderstood and underestimated them. The thing looked vaguely like a tree, if a tree could be made of what seemed to be living light. It wasn't any kind of hologram or any other type of projection either: Gil felt the light, as solid as any Kiriath metal, when, reflexively, impulsively, he reached out and touched one of the leaves. It was cool and it tickled vaguely, but more importantly it seemed to pulse with some kind of life that shouldn't be possible.

Then again, he figured that would explain why these things never survived the transport to another place, no matter how many precautions were taken. If they were somehow alive - no matter that no biologist or botanist had ever managed to establish what kind of life that might be - then it would make sense if it turned out that they needed something they found only on Ennishmin, and then died without it.

Ringil's reflexion was cut short when he caught the awed expression of a man across him, and noticed that he was but one of many staring at the sculpture with wide eyes. The idea that he might look exactly like them, naive and spell-stricken, annoyed him for some reason he couldn't be bothered to identify. He frowned to dislodge whatever silly face he might be making, and turned firmly around, looking for the exit.

* * *

It took him two hours to go through the customs hassle, which was not that bad at all. Every time he'd visited the Majak system, for example, he'd been stuck in paperwork shenanigans for at least half a day, and even once, quite famously, for half a week until Egar and his Clanmaster clout had personally come to rescue him.

So it was still quite early in the afternoon when he stepped outside of the spaceport, with the old tattered Trelayne Military Academy bag holding almost all his possessions wrapped around one shoulder, and his notebook in his hand. Everything was on there: maps of course, who to contact at the local Embassy to start his new job, where to find the hotel in which a room had been booked and pre-paid for him for his first month, and so on.

He was in no hurry, though, to get started on his _new_ new life, in this _new_ new place. It would eventually all go down the same way as it had everywhere else. No matter how careful he was, someone would eventually discover the truth about his "lifestyle", and this would shock some influential local. Or he would get into too many fights he technically (almost) never initiated; they just kept coming to him, somehow. _Yeah, somehow..._ Or maybe he would simply say the wrong thing to the wrong person. One way or the other, he would piss someone powerful off, who would ask for his removal, and he'd be shipped somewhere else - though at this point, he figured his father must be running out of options.

Oh well, that was not his problem. Not yet anyway.

Idly, he wandered to the shuttle that seemed like it would take him downtown. It was nearly full already, with the usual crowd of families on vacation, business people trying to keep working while hunched over in corners, and even what looked very much like a couple on their honeymoon. Gil felt the usual mix of sadness and bitter envy kick him in the stomach as he watched the man and woman plaster themselves against each other as though they were trying to meld together, and openly smooch, with nobody shooting them more than amused glances.

_Don't bother, Gil._ He pulled his gaze away, stood straight in the middle of the crowd, and held onto an overhead handle - quite needlessly - as the shuttle smoothly departed.

The view outside was nothing to write home about. He was going to have to be quite inventive, if he wanted to scribe letters that would satisfy his mother. He had some practice with such things, though; he would manage. If he could make the endless grassy plains of Skaranak, or the heat-drenched deserts of Demlarashan, sound like places a sophisticated noble from Trelayne would want to visit - and judging from her reaction, he had - then he could certainly make this dull, unremarkable city seem exciting as well.

If nothing else, he could always rhapsodise about the light sculptures, which he kept noticing popping up here and there, and which were every bit as entrancing as they were famed to be. Their creators, however, were nowhere to be seen so far.

* * *

He left the shuttle at the stop situated smack-dab in the very centre of the town, along with most of the other passengers. Both his hotel and the Embassy were within less than a few hundred metres, though not in the same direction. More importantly, according to his notes and maps, this was the main commercial hub, apart from the tourist trap mall next to the spaceport, which he hadn't even considered bothering with in the first place, and the trade district, next to the diplomatic one, which he would have ample time to visit later.

His stomach grumbled as his eyes caught sight of various eateries. Just around this square, it seemed he had a choice between at least a couple of full-fledged restaurants, half a dozen fast food joints, and more bars and coffee places than he cared to count. He slowly spun around, vaguely hoping for some hint as to which one to choose...


	2. Meeting

Aha!

It was the bushes that did it. Two bushes, the only ones of their type on the whole plaza, no more than a metre tall, made of that mesmerising solid light, and cut and carved into ridiculously elegant upwards spirals. Their small size and their unadorned clay pots somehow enhanced their beauty, but in an understated way which completely charmed Ringil. The shop facade - some kind of pub, or coffee place? - they adorned sealed the deal: it was clean but not aggressively so, and made of the same light grey-green stone as most buildings around, with only exquisite Aldrain-looking runes soberly sculpted around the arched entry as decoration. Its name, _The Illwrack Changeling_, barely stood out, as though it had been added as an afterthought of no particular importance.

He pushed the door and heard, at the limit of his hearing, the tinkling of an old-fashioned bell ringing somewhere. It was followed almost immediately by a holo of a woman appearing two paces to his right.

"Welcome to The Illwrack Changeling. Do you know what you wish to order, or may I help you choose?"

Ringil _stared_, all thoughts of answering forgotten. The woman looked like nothing he had ever seen, but he easily recognised the descriptions. Skin as white as ivory, hair as dark and smooth as the sea on a Trelayne night without stars or bandlight. Jutting cheekbones, high forehead, traits chiseled tight to the bone, long mobile mouth. Body so thin yet shapely, with unusually large shoulders which somehow didn't seem out of place on her.

And those eyes...

"New around here, I take it?" The cheery voice, male this one, came from Gil's other side. He repressed a shudder of surprise and spun around. Another dwenda - a real, flesh-and-bone one, this time - was coming his way, weaving a path around the handful of small round tables with the easy grace of a dancer.

He stopped in front of Ringil. He was grinning, a true smile which made the corner of his pitch-black eyes crinkle. His voice was as melodic and vibrant as the holo-woman's, though much deeper. So many things about him were alien, and yet Ringil felt himself being gathered in some kind of easy companionship, just looking at him... which in turn instinctively made him wary.

The Aldrain were supposed to be quite reclusive, distant around humans and Kiriath alike. What were the chances that Ringil had somehow run into the one exception to that apparent rule? No, it was far more likely that this was a human pretending to be a dwenda to impress the naive and ignorant tourists. Modifying one's appearance and voice was easy enough, even, Gil surmised, on such a backwater planet.

"My name is Pelmarag," the fake dwenda presently said. "I run the place here." The flutter of his hand as it vaguely circled to take in the rather tiny room was so finely graceful, it sent prickles to Gil's brain and guts. The guy had definitely practised well enough to incorporate the famed Aldrain ethereal poise. He jutted his chin towards Gil's travel bag, still perched on his shoulder. "Do you wish for a quick drink or for a full meal?"

Ringil manufactured a shrug. "I skipped breakfast on the ship. I could do with a late lunch, if you have that."

"Absolutely! Sweet or savoury, on-the-go or sitting-down, one course or three, we have enough on offer that I am sure you will find something to your satisfaction." He gestured to a table in a corner, then to the long and high bar-type one at the counter, where three human customers were chatting. "Choose a seat wherever you prefer. Do you want a menu or shall I help you choose myself?"

There was a slight accent to his speech, an ornateness to his expression, which were oddly and irresistibly charming, even as Ringil knew they must be just as fake as everything else about him. The friendliness, on the other hand, felt so natural that Ringil suspected it might be the only genuine part of the character - one, ironically, which betrayed that it was all an act. Still, it did the job: Ringil had been in what felt like a million bars and cafés, and also brothels, and other establishments where hospitality was more or less a requirement, and very rarely had he been made to feel so comfortable so quickly.

He headed for the small isolated table. "Is there anything traditionally local that a newcomer's stomach would be sure to tolerate? And I assume you've got synthehol?"

"Yes of course, on both accounts!"

* * *

They agreed on one of the marsh dishes which seemed to be the house's specialities - fish soup, a long-leaves salad, and a casserole of local mushrooms and some kind of root Ringil had never heard of - and an earthy synthewine which was supposed to complement it perfectly.

"Give it a dozen minutes," Pelmarag said as he pocketed the pad he had used to send the order to the kitchen. "Would you like any appetisers in the meantime?"

Ringil shrugged and smiled. "Why not?" He held a hand up before Pelmarag could ask any further. "Surprise me."

An unexpectedly wicked grin stretched the white lips. "Oh. Right then. Surprise appetisers for one visitor, coming right up!" He turned on the spot, and headed towards the counter.

Ringil shook his head in amusement, before pulling his notebook out of the inside pocket of his faded military jacket draped over the chair next to him. He looked up one of the guides about Ennishmin he had gathered, and jumped to the part about the famous and still quite mysterious Aldrain. In retrospect, he realised that if the holo of the Aldrain woman and Pelmarag's impersonation were any indication of what the dwenda truly looked like, then the picture which accompanied the text was rather spectacularly unflattering to the dwenda. He could only hope that the rest of the document was more accurate.

A shadow fell across his notebook, right before a voice - male, but not Pelmarag's - said quietly, "I could help you with that."

He looked up - and his entire world stumbled sideways.

Pelmarag had been attractive, as all Adrain were reputed to be, but this one... Gods, this one! Ringil felt his throat go dry and his prick twitch as he took in detail after detail. There was the slight cant of the impossibly slim and narrow hips, which was nowhere as blatant as the unspoken call of a whore, but produced its effect on Ringil all the same. There was the subtle, oh, so subtle bent of the long white lips, not quite mocking, but definitely challenging in some manner. And there was the eyes...

The eyes should have been unreadable, pitch-black and shadowed as they were, but their intense gaze pinned Ringil to his seat all the same. He felt helpless under the curiosity, almost hunger, which flooded out of them, and in return drew him ever further into their bottomless depths.

He stared, and stared. Whether he stared for ten seconds or ten centuries, he couldn't have said, by the time the dwenda - _Fake dwenda! Fake, Ringil, just as fake as Pelmarag, remember that!_ \- blinked and the charm shattered.

"One small assortment of local delicacies," the impersonator said as he deposited a plate under Ringil's nose. "And blue marshberry liqueur to go with them." A glass of intensely, almost supernaturally blue liquid joined the plate. "Synthehol, of course."

The man was now exhibiting such a detached, polite, utterly professional attitude, that Ringil began to doubt his sanity. Had he imagined the moment they had shared? His prick was still uncomfortably tight in his pants, and his heart was still racing, but—

The dwenda raised his gaze from where he was arranging the table, pinned Ringil again, and whispered, "My name is Seethlaw, and I will be your waiter, if this is all right with you."

... Ringil could only nod, dumbly. The half-smile Seethlaw threw him before turning around could not be called anything other than predatory - and Ringil felt his own lips stretch, helplessly, in heated anticipation.

* * *

Ringil had been fucking men all over the known galaxy for more than half his life by now. At thirty-one years of age, he knew what he liked in bed - quite a lot, quite frankly - and what he _liked._ Finding lovers, for a night or a few months, had never been a problem. Finding lovers who could properly indulge him, on the other hand... Well, honestly, ever since Grace-of-Heaven Milacar, all the way back on Trelayne, had accidentally helped him discover that deep-seated side of himself, Ringil had never met anyone who could make him feel the way the old gangster did on those rare lucky occasions.

When he was younger, if he managed to stay long enough in one place, he would eventually find himself gravitating to the local scene, looking for that ever-elusive right man who could give him what he didn't even quite know he wanted. He'd approached several, been solicited by even more, and he'd ended in bed with a whole lot of them. Some had come close to granting him that mysterious state he yearned for, but not close enough, never close enough. Some had even be so cocksure in their abilities that they'd insisted on making him _talk_ about it all, never mind how horrified and unwilling he'd been at that prospect! And then they'd tried to give him what he struggled to put words onto, and had failed all the same. _Fat deal of good talking has ever done me anyway._

Never again had he fallen the way Grace had made him trip and lose himself on a couple of particularly blessed nights, half a lifetime ago, no matter how hard or even desperately he'd grasped for it, no matter what he'd accepted to put himself through for a chance at it.

In the end, he'd come to the conclusion that it had all been a fluke, an artifact born from his very specific living circumstances at the time, between the military Academy, his rubbing shoulders with Grace and the others, the constant fights with his parents whenever he was home - and of course, the wound where Jelim had been, before their fathers had conspired to send the boy away to some exclusive business school which the Desnals could never have hoped to afford on their own. _"For your own good, both of you!"_ Gingren had thundered. It hadn't felt that way to Gil at the time, and maybe that was why and how he had been able to let loose under Grace-of-Heaven's hands?

Or maybe not, after all.

Because now there was this guy, this fake dwenda, who'd just had to _look at him_ to make him stumble and drive him to his metaphorical knees - _and let's be honest: you'd go to your very real knees for him if he asked you to, wouldn't you?_

... Yeah. Hell yeah, he would, and gratefully too!

_Well, shit._ Just when he'd finally given up on this particular search... He chuckled to himself. _Figures._

And then he noticed someone coming his way from the corner of his eye, and he carefully kept his gaze on the last bits of food on his plate. Sure enough, it was 'his waiter', who proceeded to elegantly arrange the various parts of Gil's main meal all over the table, and opened the bottle of synth-wine with a seemingly effortless small tilt of the wrist, and—

_And which part of 'Don't look' did you miss exactly, Gil!?_

Ringil vaguely agreed in some distant part of his brain, but he couldn't tear his eyes away from the long fingers. He couldn't help watching as they lightly dipped the bottle over Ringil's glass, barely filled the bottom, and offered it to Ringil to take a sip.

Gil swallowed, twice. First his saliva to clear his throat and calm the fire which came running through his veins once again when his fingertips brushed against the white and surprisingly cool ones as he grabbed the stem of the glass. And then, quite needlessly, a mouthful of the wine. The thing could have been pure undiluted manure and he wouldn't have known it, because all his attention was focused on not looking at Seethlaw, even as his eyes did just that anyway.

Narrow hips in black slacks, and that bulge at the front of them. It was on record that humans and Aldrain were sexually compatible - _and what the fuck does it even matter, Gil, dammit!? This guy is an impersonator, remember? Human, not dwenda, no way._ Yeah... but what did it matter, indeed? In this appearance, Gil would slip to the floor and suck him off right here and there if he asked him, all the same.

His eyes moved up the wide chest when he tipped his head back to drink, and landed, helplessly, on the white face staring straight back at him. How the mouthful of wine didn't go down the wrong way, Ringil would never know, because his throat sure closed right up at the sight of the bent lips, and the unfathomable eyes.

He managed to set his glass back down without letting his hand tremble. He nodded, gasped, "Fine," and watched in fascination when Seethlaw filled his glass, completely this time.

"Anything else I can do for you, sir?" The voice was polite and quiet, but Ringil's prick went rock hard anyway while he clamped his jaws together to make sure the one thought which had sprung to his mind - _"Fuck me"_ \- would not be translated into words against his will and best knowledge. Instead, he just shook his head.

"Then I shall leave you to enjoy your meal in peace." Seethlaw set the usual small, round chip down on the table, well to the side of where Gil's meal was arrayed. "Do not hesitate to call should you need anything." He slightly inclined his head and torso - and gods, where had he and Pelmarag learnt to be so fucking graceful!? - and turned around.

... Ringil vaguely wondered, as he stared and stared, if the fake dwenda could feel his customer's gaze glued to his taut little arse moving smoothly under the tight black fabric, until he disappeared behind the bar.

* * *


	3. Preliminaries

The food was excellent and, as requested, easy both on Ringil's palate and stomach. He enjoyed spices and unusual ingredients, but he'd discovered the hard way that he needed to take the time to accommodate to the local stuff whenever he moved somewhere new. If Ennishmin had anything hot or thoroughly exotic to offer, he would have time to sample it later on. In the meantime, this mild but flavourful meal was exactly what he'd needed. His parents would probably have qualified it of "peasant food", but he had no such hang-ups and emptied every bowl and plate with unabashed relish.

He was slowly sipping on the last dregs of the blue wine - which he could properly appreciate now that he could think again, and which was indeed pleasantly earthy, with just a hint of fruity sweetness to prevent it from being too tart - when he saw Seethlaw leaving the bar to come his way. He fought back the fire trying to overcome him once more, forced his gaze away, and didn't budge a muscle beyond taking another small, hopefully sufficiently detached-looking sip.

"Was everything to your satisfaction?"

Fuck.

Just that _voice_, in that overly polite tone, threatened to turn him into a puddle of horny goo.

He grunted, looked for his own ability to speak. "It was all excellent."

"Pel prides himself on being able to read people and counsel them in accordance." It took far too long for Ringil's lust-flooded brain to put two and two together and come up with the full name, Pelmarag. "He says that next time, you will ask for something a little spicier. I wonder: is he right?"

Ringil stared into his empty glass; what seemed like entire planets were colliding inside his head. It wasn't just that Pelmarag had somehow guessed right. It wasn't just that Seethlaw was very clearly idly chatting when he didn't need to. It wasn't just the mention of a "next time", and yes, Ringil realised now that there would _definitely_ be a next time, against his utmost best judgement if necessary. And it wasn't just that when Seethlaw had said, "something spicier", Ringil had immediately envisioned a big prick jutting out of black slack pants...

It wasn't any _one_ of those things. It was _all of them_ at once. And it was _too much._

He didn't react, didn't move at all, remained still as a statue, when cool white fingers carefully disentangled the glass from his grasp. He only blinked, unable to think, when that overly-polite voice asked, so softly, "Do you wish for anything more, or have you had your fill?"

... No answer. He couldn't answer, couldn't think of an answer that wouldn't somehow have to do with sex rather than food, and certainly couldn't speak it. His entire world had been reduced to this voice in his ear, and this presence by his side. He couldn't have said what he was looking at, just that it wasn't Seethlaw because that would have been too much. He didn't remember where he was, didn't know what he most wanted next...

If anything, he just wanted this moment to last forever.

Something - something small, something undefinable, but something very real - had shifted in Seethlaw's voice when he whispered, "Shall I take the initiative and decide for you, then?"

Ringil was quite sure he'd never whimpered the way he did now, desperate yet hopeful all at once, barely audible yet coming from the deepest parts of his being and resonating throughout.

"All right, I'll be back soon. Wait for me, shall you?"

Another feeble sound left Ringil's throat - an unworded admission that he would have been unable to leave this table, let alone this shop, even if he'd wanted to - and his brain blanked out.

* * *

Once again, Ringil lost all track of time. How long it took before Seethlaw was suddenly here again, with a couple small plates lined up on his arm, he couldn't have said and didn't care.

All that mattered was that Seethlaw was by his side once more, and _that_ voice was speaking up again.

"If I may offer you a sample of the house's specialities?" Ringil blinked, then mentally chastised himself. _Not everything has to be a double-entendre, dammit! Focus!_

A first dish was laid on the table, with a piece of something white at its centre and a few bread slices artfully arranged around it. "Aged goat cheese on marsh-chestnut bread. Firm at first, but turn it in your mouth long enough, and it will melt into the most fragrant mush as it drips into your throat."

Ringil stared into thin air. _Oh come on!_ Surely he _had_ to be imagining...?

A small bowl full of a riotous purple jelly followed. "Dogberry sauce. An explosion of flavours waiting to happen on your tongue."

Said tongue went dry, along with Ringil's whole mouth, as he was forced to admit that no, he wasn't imagining anything. Seethlaw was deliberately provoking him, and Ringil, caught between the thrill of seduction and the same kind of thumping in his blood which preceded fights, could only give thanks to the universe for the way the table was hiding his rapidly strengthening erection.

Seethlaw was still elaborating on the berry sauce, in that overly professional voice of his which did _things_ to Ringil - things Ringil had never even known _could_ be done to him! "Mostly sweet, with just the right hints of spiciness and bitterness to stop it from being sickeningly so." Seethlaw's voice dropped once more to a whisper. "As a rule, you either love it or hate it, but those who love it can never get enough of it."

... _Fuck._ Fuck fuck fuck! The allusion was anything but subtle, and it was almost galling how well it was working on Ringil's prick.

Finally, Seethlaw pulled a small bottle out of his belt - _and no, there's no innuendo there either, of course not_ \- and set it down so close to Ringil's hand he felt it brush against his skin.

The fake dwenda kept his voice a murmur when he finished, "And to wash it all down, courtesy of the house: real marsh beer. The synthehol substitute never quite manages to capture the full flavour of it. I must ask that you keep this quiet, though, as we do not have a licence to serve true alcohol, and as you undoubtedly know, the delivery of such services is strictly controlled." He opened the small bottle, and only then asked, "Unless of course, you would rather not indulge?"

The bastard had known that Ringil would not refuse - not the beer, and, as must be becoming increasingly obvious, no matter how hard Ringil was fighting to keep it hidden, not anything else either. _"The delivery of such services is strictly controlled"_: he didn't mean only serving alcohol, and they both knew it. He was offering... He was offering...

Fuck.

_Quite,_ his mind could not help pointing out, absolutely unhelpfully.

"If all this is all right with you, I shall leave you to enjoy it all, then?"

Ringil swallowed with some difficulty, and nodded.

"Take your time," Seethlaw added in a voice so low, it was almost a growl. "Do please _enjoy_ it." He almost gasped on that last word, and suddenly Ringil understood. His eyes went wide, and once again glued themselves to the tight arse walking away from him, and he remained still until Seethlaw had disappeared through a door behind the bar.

* * *

He had no idea where the cameras were, but it didn't matter. In fact, it was better this way. It forced him, _allowed_ him, to act as though he were being watched from every possible angle. It was strangely liberating, almost exhilarating.

Slowly, painstakingly, he cut out a slice of cheese and laid it on a chunk of bread. He wrapped his lips around the whole, closed his eyes, bit down carefully. The taste was good, neither too bland nor too pronounced; the texture, as Seethlaw had said, was hard at first, but he did as he'd been instructed and worked on the pieces instead of swallowing them right away. Soon enough, the bread crumbled and the cheese mixed with his saliva, filling his mouth with—

He hesitated. Did he dare...?

... He did.

Right before swallowing the now mushy mix, he allowed the tiniest dribble to escape the corner of his mouth. He caught it on his thumb, and slowly, so slowly, proceeded to suck on it to clean it. His eyes were still closed, and in his mind, he could picture Seethlaw standing there, watching him, looking tense and so _hungry_...

His own prick was fully hard now, trapped against his stomach, screaming for attention. He ignored it, opened his eyes just long enough to reach for the bottle of beer. He brought it to his mouth, licked around its narrow opening, before taking a long swallow of the strangely greenish liquid. He felt the alcohol hit immediately, as it always did whenever he could get his hand on the real stuff. A beautiful heat bloomed in his stomach and diffused throughout his being - far less pointed than the one torturing his groin, but just as potent in its own way. The mix of the two... Gods, Seethlaw better had plans to fuck him after this!

He picked up another slice of bread and another bit of cheese, and repeated the whole process. His prick was throbbing with need, and he was that close to releasing an indecent moan, but he wouldn't have stopped even for an earthquake. With every bite, he felt as though he were stripping an item of clothing, laying himself a little more bare for Seethlaw to watch, and hopefully, to want as much as Ringil wanted him.

_You only want what he looks like,_ his brain reminded him as he finished off the last of the cheese and bread. _He's not really a dwenda._ That was true, but Ringil didn't mind. He'd had more than his share of beautiful lovers; it wasn't the superficial appearance which drew him so desperately to the fake dwenda. It was that look in his eyes, and that way he talked, and these were genuine enough. It was all that mattered.

After the saltiness of the cheese, the sweetness of the berry sauce took him by surprise and nearly wrenched a whine out of him after all. _An explosion of flavours_, was how Seethlaw had described it, and that was unexpectedly true! This time, Ringil didn't have to decide to close his eyes; they did on their own. He swished his spoonful around on his tongue, swallowed, licked his lips long and hard.

Did it again, and again, imagining Seethlaw looking at him with that deep, dark hunger in his gaze, with, maybe, a growing bulge in those tight and far too prim pants. Was the dwenda - fake dwenda, whatever - touching himself by now? Had Ringil put on a good enough show to his taste? What was he planning to do next?

A doubt came to Ringil. What _could_ Seethlaw do, really? They weren't going to fuck on the table, were they? Hmm...

As he thoroughly polished the spoon clean after collecting the last drops of berry sauce, Ringil looked around him. Aha, over there! He dropped the utensil into the empty bowl, daintily wiped his fingers and mouth on the cloth napkin he had been provided with - his mother would be so proud - and stood up. With his old, comfortable, now utterly shapeless army shirt falling well to his hips over the large trousers he always wore when he travelled, his hard-on was unnoticeable, trapped as it was up against his stomach by his underwear. Walking like this was uncomfortable, of course, but he didn't have far to go.

He slipped into the bathroom and headed straight for one of the two stalls. The other was empty, and as he pushed his door closed but did not lock it, Ringil fervently hoped it would remain so for as long as necessary.

He breathed a heavy sigh of relief when he was finally able to undo his belt and let his pants drop around his booted ankles. He quickly wriggled his underwear over his arse and down his hips and—

"Do not touch yourself."


	4. Bare

He had expected it, but the surprise of hearing that soft, soft voice rising behind him still sent him reeling with shock and alarm. He turned on the spot, adrenaline flooding his system even as alcohol dulled his reflexes, and then lust followed straight on their heels at the sight of the open hunger on Seethlaw's face.

The fake dwenda slipped into the cubicle - and left the door wide open. Ringil swallowed, his excitement kicking up yet another notch. He knew he had somewhat of an exhibitionist streak, but discovering that Seethlaw apparently did so too was a welcome surprise indeed!

Though... Ringil wondered: had Seethlaw closed the door to the bathroom itself, or was there a real possibility that someone might come in and catch them in the act? He couldn't even tell which option he preferred; he just knew that he was already grateful to Seethlaw for putting him into that position in the first place: half-naked, hard as a rock for all to see, and ready to go to his knees and suck the fake dwenda off with just a word.

Just a word...

A word, any time now...

A word that wasn't coming! Seethlaw was just standing there, staring at Ringil's prick which was standing high and proud from under his shirt. Ringil noticed with satisfaction, at least, that the bulge in the tight black pants was definitely much more noticeable this time.

"You may resume taking your clothes off," Seethlaw finally said. The tone was almost gentle, and the hand gesture which accompanied it might nearly have looked like a plea, but there was no doubt to be had: this was an order, not a request.

Ringil swallowed. He wanted to obey, oh fuck yes, he did! But... It wasn't quite yet enough, and he wanted, he needed, so desperately, to know whether Seethlaw _could_ reach that spot, _could_ give him what he longed for so urgently.

He raised his chin, forced a defiant grin onto his lips. "Make me."

He could have sworn he saw Seethlaw sway, and even the smile on the white lips faltered for a couple of seconds. When it came back, it was so greedy it put Ringil in mind of a wolf, and the hunger in the pitch eyes was now blazing as fiercely as the twin suns in the sky of Trelayne at midday.

And Ringil understood, once again, without being told. Seethlaw was looking for the right man just as much as Ringil was - and it seemed like Ringil might just be that man... _Gods... Oh ye gods!_

There was a slight, arch roughness to Seethlaw's voice when he started again. "The shirt comes off." He stepped closer, delicately grabbed the hem of said shirt at the front, started to pull it up.

Pinned Ringil with his empty gaze, and whispered, "I want to see you."

Ringil did not move. He couldn't have even if he'd wanted to, and he absolutely did not wish to. He had no desire whatsoever to stop Seethlaw as the fake dwenda slowly, almost too slowly pulled and then pushed the hem of the shirt up Ringil's stomach and chest. Ringil was about to raise his arms when Seethlaw said simply, "Stay."

Ringil didn't move, but he also didn't take the slight without protesting, "I'm not a dog."

And then the front of his shirt was being moved over his head and he could only listen as Seethlaw patiently replied, "Of course not. I would not be interested in a dog." The way he said it, as though the only reason Ringil was not a dog was because he, Seethlaw, was no dog-fucker, as though Ringil only existed to satisfy him, stole Ringil's breath away...

The shirt passed over Gil's head, but Seethlaw did not pull it down his arms. Instead, he left it there, blocking Ringil's arms in a pulled position behind his back, and forcing him to push his chest forward. The posture instantly enhanced Ringil's feeling of exposure a hundredfold. He was not just bare from head to ankles now; he was blatantly and helplessly displaying that nakedness to Seethlaw, and through the open stall door, to the entire world.

He knew that the dwenda guessed exactly how he felt, when a cool white finger traced the line of his collarbone before heading down. Ringil shivered, and the white lips quirked mischievously. "Close your eyes," they said. Ringil tried to resist, to disobey; he did! But he couldn't. His eyelids weighed a ton each.

The finger stopped on his sternum. "Focus," the gentle voice said. That was another easy command to follow, in the sudden silence and stillness. Focus on that finger, on that touch, so strangely cool, so solidly confident. Focus on—

"Fuck!"

He had not felt it coming, not even realised that it was the next logical move. The sensation of a wet thumb, out of nowhere, rubbing against his nipple, nearly robbed all strength from him and almost sent him crashing to the floor. He swayed on the spot, heart racing, prick throbbing, everything forgotten but for those twin touches: the anchoring one on his sternum, and the one creating a raging storm throughout his entire body with just a few twists over and around his right nipple...

Fuck. He was gone; he was so far gone already!

And yet...

Forcing his eyes open again felt like a superhuman effort, but he eventually managed. Then he had to work on focusing on Seethlaw's face through the waves of red hot pleasure washing over him. Where he would find the strength to speak, he had no idea, but he would deal with that when—

Seethlaw read him, again. It was the dark gaze which captured his, not the other way around. The thumb stopped its maddening dance, though it remained pressed to Ringil's sensitive nipple. "Speak up," that soft voice said. "Tell me out loud what you want."

_Bare yourself to me even more than you already are._ Ringil felt something very much like a sob bubble up in his throat. With just a few words, this man he didn't know, this man whose real appearance he'd never even seen, was taking possession of him, was depriving him of the last dregs of his independence, his self-determination - and yet the loss he felt was the very gift he had dreamt of all his life, and so much more!

"I want..." _to suck you off._ No - too direct, too quick. He had to make this last. "I want..." Voice rough, breath heavy. "T-to take your prick in my mouth." Yes, good. More. "To lick it. To suck on it." Oh fuck, that fire in Seethlaw's eyes... "I want you to push it all the way down into my throat." The cool fingers, trembling against his chest, briefly, like a spasm, and Ringil, free now, a wonderful grin playing over his face as he kept going, the words stumbling over each other in their heady rush for his deliverance through their expression, "I want you to hold my head, to make me gag on it. I want you to come deep in my throat, to make me choke on your seed. And then—"

"Hush." Cool fingers leaving Ringil's nipple and settling themselves over his lips instead. And Seethlaw, regaining his poise, but his voice still a bit tight as he countered, "What you want is irrelevant."

And Ringil moaned, _finally._

He moaned in pure pleasure, not frustration, because Seethlaw was once again taking all control away from him, and fighting and indulging all at once this demeaning theft of his selfhood was everything Ringil wanted.

"My prick in your mouth, you may have only when you show yourself deserving of it." Ringil blinked; that... wasn't a point of view he'd ever encountered before. If anything, he'd run far too often into the opposite: that being made to suck on another man's cock was disgusting and inherently humiliating. The idea that it could be a recompense...

... made sense, he realised with a shock. Here and now, with Seethlaw, yes, it made sense. Ringil could not have explained the logic of it, but he knew it in his bones suddenly, as certain as the air he breathed.

Well, all right then. He raised his chin again, put on the best grin he found, and replied, as insolently as he could, "Deserving, huh?"

_Yes!_ He saw it once again in the pitch eyes, that mix of relief and approval and immense, bottomless hunger.

He kept the grin, held the dark gaze, waited. He pointedly did _not_ look down when Seethlaw's hand moved. He remained still as it cupped his balls - strange contact, so familiar in its moves yet so alien in its temperature. Despite his best efforts, though, he lost the smile, and instead barely held back a pleading grunt behind tight jaws, when those fingers crept up and wrapped around his prick.

And then they began the age old, up and down dance, and he lost all composure. His eyes closed. He bit his lips. His head fell back. He was so hard! Just a little more, and he was going to... Just a little... Just—

"I could keep you there for hours."

Ringil barely heard the soft words through the pounding of his heart in his ears. Then he struggled to understand what they meant. And when he did...

"Fuck, _please!_"

Please what? Please yes? Please no? Both? He didn't know!

A gentle chuckle answered him. The torturous dance continued, and the voice - a voice that was going to haunt his dreams for the rest of his life, he already knew that - explained further. "You're a strong man." A cool palm planted itself high on his chest, on his desperately flexing pectorals. "You could push me away, walk out of here, if you wanted to." Yes, Ringil could, easily. "So why should I not take as much as I please, with no care for what it does to you?"

Why? ... Why not!? _Take it. Take it all._ Ringil's body and mind were screaming silently. _We're yours. Do with us as you wish._

And just like that, suddenly, unexpectedly, Ringil felt himself slipping.

As the touch of the cool fingers on his body grew more excruciating by the minute, his mind emptied of anything but peace. He could feel his arms struggling against the prison of his shirt. He could feel his nipples crying out in too intense pleasure under the dual assault of fingers on one side, and lips and teeth and tongue on the other. And of course, burning up and down his thighs, sheeting up all over his belly and arse, there was that ever-tightening need, and he could hear himself sobbing as the bliss turned to pain and back to bliss, over and over and over again, until they merged and he could not have said where one ended and the other started, and he did not _want_ to distinguish between them anymore, he did not _want_ either of them, any of this, to ever stop...

He was quite sure he was going to die, but he happily, almost gratefully welcomed that fact. He was going to die because Seethlaw's rhythm was not changing, not quickening, not working him up to any climax, and there was no way a human body could survive such an endlessly repeated round-trip. He was going to die of blissful pain, of torturous pleasure, for the satisfaction of a stranger.

And that was exactly how he wanted it.

He wasn't his own anymore. His body didn't belong to him any longer; it was nothing more than a tool for another to use to their own ends. His sensations were not his to control; they weren't even for him to experience. His delight, his oversensitive hurt, they were for Seethlaw alone to enjoy. Not even so much as the shadow of an orgasm coiling deep in his guts was due to him, and he had no right to expect one. Only Seethlaw could decide on that, because only Seethlaw's will and satisfaction mattered.

He was crying now; he could feel the wetness on his cheeks, taste the salt at the corner of his lips. It didn't matter. Wherever he was, deep inside himself, every feeling, every sensation melted into one single, simple, impossibly quiet conclusion: he had found his place. He belonged to Seethlaw. The more his body shuddered and pleaded, and the more convinced he became that he was going to die because nobody could endure such a heightened state of conflicting sensations - the more at peace he felt.

This was right. This was good. This was where he should be.

The soft voice was telling him so too. The cool mouth had left his nipple, and licked its way to his neck and jaw. It was whispering in his ear now.

"So beautiful..."

A gentle bite.

"So perfect."

Ringil cried and sobbed, his soul as shattered by what Seethlaw was saying as his body was being ruined by what Seethlaw was doing.

And then the gentle voice, in its delicious accent, was enquiring, "How far would you go for me?" and Ringil heard himself reply, "Just ask." He hadn't needed to think about it; there was only one possible answer to this silly question.

The rhythm on Ringil's prick finally changed, picked up, even as Seethlaw wondered again, "Would you refrain from coming, just for me?"

... Die. He was going to die if he didn't come; Ringil knew that. And yet, once more, there was only one possible option. "Of course."

And so he did. Seethlaw assaulted him once again, with hands and mouth. Nipples, skin everywhere, prick, balls, and even a finger slyly inserted into his hole and proceeding to rub against his prostate: Seethlaw tried everything, and Ringil twisted and jerked and heard himself grunt and plead and cry out - but he didn't come.

He burned, hotter than a star, inside and out, but he didn't come.

He died, again and again and again, as he came oh so close to finally finding release, and somehow - he didn't know how, just that he did - pushed it back under a wave of agony and grief.

He burned, and he died, and he writhed, but he didn't come, and he didn't leave.

He _couldn't_ leave, because he didn't own himself anymore. He belonged to Seethlaw, and a mere orgasm could not compare with the infinite, soul-deep satisfaction of obeying Seethlaw, of granting him his wish, of hearing him praise Ringil's obedience.

"So good."

A cool kiss at the juncture of Ringil's neck and shoulder.

"So perfect."

Ringil shuddered; the open admiration in Seethlaw's voice was almost enough to tear his determination apart and make him come after all.

"So amazing."

Breathe in, push back the fire, don't allow it—

"Let go and come for me now, beautiful."

Ringil had not expected it. The order took him by surprise, leaving him no time to control the flow of events. His orgasm was wrenching its way out of him before he'd even finished understanding what Seethlaw had said. The pain of waiting for so long, of enduring so much oversensitivity, enhanced the pleasure far beyond anything he'd ever known. He made no sound, because there was no sound a human throat could make that would have come close to accurately translating what he was feeling.

Pleasure, yes, and pain, and too much, and oh gods finally, and thank you, thank you so much, and _oh!_

And above all, and the last one remaining when all the others were come and gone... Peace. So much peace. Blissful, perfectly white peace, within the embrace of Seethlaw's strong arms holding him up, within the comfort of Seethlaw's soft voice telling him how well he had done...

Peace. Perfect peace.

* * *


	5. Belonging

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> No porn in this one, sorry. Unless you count emotional porn (I do, which is why I write it.) And yes, I'm having fun messing around with some of the canon's lines and concepts.

He woke up sitting on his bare arse on cold tiles.

He blinked.

There were arms around him, keeping him upright and close to another body. There was long hair brushing against his face. For a fleeting moment, he thought he must be back home, and somehow in his mother's embrace, because there had never been anyone else who cradled him like that. But no, this absolutely was not his mother.

And then his senses caught up with him and the memories rushed back as felt the pull back on his shoulders and inhaled the smell of spices and his own semen. _Seethlaw._ It was Seethlaw holding him, after he had apparently passed out from an orgasm which he had thought at the time would surely kill him.

_Didn't kill you after all._ No, it hadn't... But now, the thought that Seethlaw might let go of him was replacing that old fear with a new one. _Don't go. Don't leave me._ Not like this, not now, not—

"Awake, are we?" As always, Seethlaw's tone was soft and light. His touch, too, when his hand briefly caressed Ringil's jaw and cheek. And then he was pushing Ringil away, and Ringil's heart fell, hard and swift.

He kept his eyes glued to the floor while Seethlaw knelt back and stood up. He couldn't bear to let the other man know how much he wanted him to stay. So he just waited, sitting naked on the floor of the bathroom cubicle, with his arms still tied behind his back with his own shirt.

"Oi!" There was annoyance in Seethlaw's voice when he tugged on a strand of Ringil's hair. "Haven't you slept long enough? Time to go to work now."

... What? Ringil blinked and automatically looked up - and his heart stopped, then stampeded.

Seethlaw was not going anywhere. He was standing next to Ringil - with his pants opened and his huge white prick sticking high and straight out of them.

Ringil scrambled to his knees. He could not help the smile - so happy it hurt - which came on his lips when Seethlaw grabbed his chin in one hand, his own cock in the other, and dragged the large white head over Ringil's face. He closed his eyes, allowed himself to enjoy the sticky wetness, and its spicy taste, and—

Wait. Spicy? Ringil's eyes flew back open, and he took in the utter whiteness of Seethlaw's prick and balls and skin where it showed between the flaps of his pants.

The words flew out of his mouth. "You're the real thing!?"

Seethlaw stopped moving. He said nothing. Ringil winced and looked up into a perfect depiction of bafflement. They stared into each other's eyes for a few moments, until Seethlaw regained some of his composure. He released Ringil's chin, let go of his own prick, crossed his arms, and raised an eyebrow. "The real thing?"

Ringil grimaced. "I, er..." He looked away then back at Seethlaw in defiance, shrugged, muttered, "I thought you were a dwenda impersonator."

Seethlaw's eyes widened. "Impersonator?"

Ringil rounded his back in irritated defence. "Look, the Aldrain are supposed to be those half-mythical beings, and I just arrive and I run straight into a pair of them in a fucking _coffee shop!?_"

Seethlaw seemed stumped, for once. "We're... not mythical. This is our planet! Granted, most of us don't live in the cities, but still, haven't you seen the name over the door?"

It was Ringil's turn to be mystified. "... Name? What name?"

Seethlaw huffed. "The shop's name! The Illwrack Changeling."

"Yes...? What about it?"

Seethlaw stared at him like he'd just said there was no sun in the sky. Then he shook his head and rubbed his eyes with two fingers. "Right. You really don't know anything about this world, do you?"

"No. Just arrived, remember? And the literature I read wasn't terribly helpful."

Seethlaw gave him a thin, rather nasty smile. "All right, then let me put it this way: if anyone was stupid enough to appropriate the Illwrack name, they would swiftly disappear, and nobody would dare go looking for them. The humans around here have long learnt not to mess with any of us Aldrain, and even more so with some specific clans."

"Oh..."

"As I said, this is our planet. We don't mind sharing it with humans." He briefly frowned. "Well, some of us do, but they just stay away. The rest of us have accommodated to the situation over time."

A sly grin replaced the frown as he looked down at Ringil still kneeling at his feet. A white hand rose languidly, traced the side of Ringil's face. It definitely felt like ownership as well as appreciation, and Ringil shivered and didn't bother refraining the way his lips bent in response, and his hand tilted to burrow further into the cool touch.

Something flickered in Seethlaw's dark gaze. He swallowed. Ringil could have sworn that the white thumb trembled where it traced his cheekbone, and that Seethlaw's voice was just a little tighter when he concluded in a whisper. "And some few of us... have even come to enjoy the presence of humans."

He collected himself then, gripped Ringil's chin once more. "I am Seethlaw of Illwrack. I and my sister, whose holo greeted you, own this place, hence the name."

Ringil frowned. "Pelmarag said he runs it."

"Yes, he runs it, but he doesn't own it." The smile on the white lips grew oddly fond. "He loves humans, spending time with them, so he jumped on the opportunity to run the place for us. And Ashgrin, his companion, is our cook. I daresay he's good at his job?"

Ringil blinked at the simple, free admission Seethlaw had just made. On almost any other world, stating so blithely that two men were in a relationship could easily land him and them into serious troubles. Most of the colonies were aggressively pro-natality for obvious reasons, and anything which threatened the high population growth they needed was harshly repressed. Even on the older worlds where the need for large new generations was not so intense, humans - and it was always humans, never the Kiriath - somehow never ran out of reasons to hunt and punish those they saw as deviants for whatever reason.

Nothing in Ringil's notes about Ennishmin had mentioned that attitudes were different here. Buggery was illegal in human quarters. The Kiriath had long left this place behind for reasons they had not cared to explain. And the Aldrain... Well, Ringil figured that nobody had asked them their opinion on that matter, or maybe nobody had _liked_ said opinion when they'd expressed it as freely as Seethlaw had just done, and so it wasn't mentioned anywhere.

Ringil shivered at the discovery that in this little shop at least, he was no abomination, and he was in fact exactly like most of the staff. He was... normal, here? At least on that matter? That... That wasn't something he had ever imagined. He wasn't even sure he _could_ conceive of it! He was... It was—

"Beautiful, are you still with me?" Judging by the gentle tone in which he'd spoken, and by the soothing way he was running his thumb along Ringil's jawline, Seethlaw already knew the answer to his question. This was only his attempt at pulling Ringil back into the situation without jolting him - and that he should even care that much twisted something in Gil's guts, but he ignored it and forced himself to focus again on Seethlaw's patiently confused face.

What had they been talking about, again? ... Ah yes, Pelmarag and Ashgrin, and Ashgrin's cooking. He summoned a wobbly grin from somewhere, and replied unsteadily, "I'll have to sample more of his food, but so far, I'd say it's pretty good, yeah."

He saw the way the dark gaze briefly faltered, felt the shiver in the grip on his chin. It took him a moment to decipher what had induced them. When he realised that it was simply his casual mention of coming back to the shop, he had to think quickly and hide his own rush of answering emotions under a question of his own.

"So then, what's the shop's name about? Illwrack Changeling?" The marsh travellers had legends of this type, back on Trelayne. "You guys in the business of stealing children or something?" He'd kept his tone as light as he could; he wasn't serious and he hoped Seethlaw understood it.

He certainly hadn't expected the blaze of hunger in the blank eyes, and that soft voice going even softer as it asked back, "Would you _like_ me to steal you?"

Ringil stopped breathing for a moment. He stared deep in the dark gaze, and barely managed to hold back the answer which had automatically and so hopefully it was almost painful, jumped to his mind and mouth, "Fuck, yes!" _Yes, steal me, take me away from all the worlds I've ever known, take me to a place where I can be yours in every way, and nobody will come and condemn us for it._

The dwenda shook his head then, fracturing the moment, allowing Ringil to breathe and think again. "So anyway: children, no, never. But it seems my clan developed a reputation over the few centuries humans have been around, of abducting adults, dragging them into the marsh, and never letting them go back to their people."

Ringil blinked. This was a far more serious and concerning answer than he'd expected. But then he saw the intense look Seethlaw was giving him. Something more was going on, and Seethlaw was waiting for him to—

Oh.

_Oh!_

He had to swallow, hard. He anchored himself in the depths of Seethlaw's knowing gaze, and quietly concluded, "They could have gone back any time they wanted, couldn't they?"

Seethlaw only nodded, but it was all Ringil needed. He had only one last question. "And their Illwrack counterparts had no more choice in it, did they?"

A pause, and then, slowly, a shake of the white face - the admission that, just as Ringil had suspected from glimpses he'd caught here and there, Seethlaw was as locked in this peculiar thing growing between them as Ringil himself was.

It was so strange, discovering he wasn't the first, _they_ weren't the first, they were just two more in a line long enough that it had spawned its own legend. His fierce self-protective need for independence rebelled deep inside him, refusing to submit to this custom imposed on him by this alien world he had nothing to do with. But his soul, or whatever part of him he attributed this name to...

His soul felt whole for the very first time in his life.

Because he was where he should be. He had found his one place in the entire universe. He had finally been given what he didn't know he had been missing and looking for his whole life.

Kneeling here at Seethlaw's feet, naked and covered in his own bodily fluids, waiting for the white prick to resume its dance across his face before pushing its way down his throat... Kneeling here, under Seethlaw's fiercely possessive gaze, under his intensely appreciative touch...

Nothing had ever felt so right.

A question popped into his head, and he asked it before he could change his own mind. "Will you ever take me to the marsh?" _Will I disappear as well?_

Seethlaw tilted his head, took his sweet time to answer with another, unexpected question. "What is your name?"

Ringil blinked. "What?"

Seethlaw ran once more his hand down the side of Ringil's face, in that way an owner would appreciate a prised good, and then tangled his fingertips into Ringil's long, somewhat dishevelled hair. "Random fucks don't need a name," he explained calmly, "but I'd like to know what to call the man I'm going to keep for as long as he will stay."

Ringil's heart seemed to grow three times larger in his chest, and he had to bite back the one impassioned promise that wanted to fly out of his mouth and soul, _"Always!"_ Instead, he took a breath to regain some control, and said as coolly as he could, "Ringil. Ringil Eskiath. My friends call me Gil."

"Ringil..." Oh fuck. _Ohfuckohfuckohfuck._ It was just one word, but Gil knew he was going to want to hear it, said in that voice, gentle over understatedly authoritative, and so deliciously slightly accented, every single day of his life from now on. "Gil."

He couldn't talk anymore, could hardly breathe, could only _want._

He opened his mouth, stared straight into Seethlaw's eyes, waited for the dwenda - a real motherfucking dwenda after all - to place the head of his huge white prick in it. And when he did, and Ringil tasted that spiciness again, the one feeling which filled him from head to toe for an instant, before lust reclaimed its hold on him it in a heated rush, was that he was _home_. On this drab little planet so far away from everything, with this creature he knew next to nothing about, he was _home._

Finally.

* * *


	6. Owned

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Content warning: brief mention of Gingren's canonical infidelities, and brief discussion of Seethlaw's potential marital status, but (spoilers?), no, Seethlaw is not cheating on anyone with Ringil in this fic.

"Good... So good... _Oh, Gil!_"

Ringil smiled around the prick in his mouth. Yeah, he was good at sucking cock; he knew it. Plenty of men had told him so. But...

The cool fingers endlessly brushing his hair back from his forehead briefly trembled, and Ringil's stomach shivered with them. He'd always enjoyed making his partners lose their mind, but this was so different!

"This! Do this again!" Seethlaw's hand seized in Ringil's hair, pulling on the strands there. It hurt, but Ringil just smiled some more.

'This' was one of his most appreciated tricks: taking the head all the way to the back of his throat, and swallowing around it. Most men he'd done it to had loved it, but he didn't do it that often because no matter how thoroughly he relaxed his jaw and neck muscles, it was still an uncomfortable manoeuvre to perform at the best of times - when not an outright difficult one, such as when working with a prick as thick as Seethlaw's.

With anyone else, he would have taken the time to relax his mouth before attempting it again. But what Seethlaw wanted to receive, Ringil wanted to give him, so he only pulled back long enough to take a deep breath through his nose - and gods, just the smell of Seethlaw's arousal was enough to make Gil's own dick kick with need - and plunged right away again.

He closed his eyes, the better to appreciate the long glide of the velvet-soft skin of the dwenda's prick on his curved, guiding, welcoming tongue; the thoroughly alien yet already so dear and familiar taste of the dripping precome; the thickness of that strong, beautiful, marble-like dick forging its way deeper and deeper, unheeding of how it forced his jaws painfully wide open, of how thoroughly he had to focus on repressing his gag reflex, of how close it came _not_ to fit through his throat opening...

Seethlaw pushed, and Ringil took, and it was perfect.

Or almost perfect. Ringil would have given a fortune to have his hands free, to be allowed to settle them on Seethlaw's hips, to grasp onto Seethlaw's tight arse, and to _pull_ him in even harder, even deeper, no matter that it wasn't even physically possible.

But Seethlaw had left the shirt prison in place, pinning Ringil's arms behind his back, because today, Ringil was learning his place. He was learning that he was not to ask, only to obey. He was not to decide, only to accept. He was not to reach, only to take what was given him.

That was frustrating yet beyond thrilling. He rejoiced even as he mourned. He wished it were otherwise at the same time as he would have refused to change anything if he were offered the opportunity. Wanting his own things, yet finding utter satisfaction in doing everything Seethlaw's way instead: this was the lesson and the wonderful, delicious discovery of the day.

And so he just knelt there, mouth opened obscenely wide, saliva dribbling all over his chin and spreading over his cheeks, knees kept apart, his entire body bare but for the boots and the tangle of pants and underwear around his ankles and over his feet, and the bundled shirt holding his arms back. Seethlaw was still mostly clothed, which only delightfully enhanced Ringil's feeling of nakedness. As for the sounds they made...

Ringil was certain now that Seethlaw had locked the bathroom door when he'd come in, if only because nobody had entered since he'd arrived. That assurance in turn gave him free rein to imagine that it was _not_ locked, and that any time now, someone was going to push it open, and hear the truly indecent sounds they were making, those wonderfully disgusting sounds which were reverberating all over the room, and were quite simply amazing for him to listen to, because they too thoroughly underlined how completely he was being used for Seethlaw's pleasure.

There were Seethlaw's grunts, wrapping themselves all around him, each new one mixing and melting with the echoes of the previous ones. There was the slap of Seethlaw's groin against his face, growing more muddled as the dwenda gradually lost his tight self-control and started rutting mindlessly into Ringil's throat.

There was himself, too, as he moaned and groaned in pure pride and satisfaction at being almost publicly made to sexually service Seethlaw, and at doing it so well.

Above all, though, and _that_ he would not have wanted to share with anyone else, there was Seethlaw's voice murmuring and gasping and pleading and yes, sometimes, even nearly shouting, his usual words of praise.

"Oh, Ringil..."

The dwenda was growing more incoherent with each passing minute, and slipped more and more often from Standard into a beautifully lilting tongue which Gil guessed must be Aldrain native.

"So good, my beautiful, so good!"

But still, throughout it all, Seethlaw's voice was there, always there, always draping Ringil in its approval and encouragement, just as surely as the long fingers both pulled on his hair and gently combed it back in mixed encouragement, appreciation and demand.

"Yes, again, this, Gil, again, do this again!"

Ringil's prick was back at full mast, had been for a while already, but nobody was touching it where it hung, helpless and heavy, between Ringil's splayed knees. Ringil didn't mind: almost every word out of Seethlaw's mouth was like a caress making its way from his ears to his groin anyway, stoking the fire there. That was more than enough.

"Take it, take it all, be mine, be _mine!_"

This time, Ringil heard the harsh change in Seethlaw's tone - and a terrible shiver of thrill ran down his back. There had been no gentleness anymore in those words, and no encouragement or approval either. There had been only possessiveness, authority - a command from a master to a slave, and Ringil had _liked_ it, from the bottom of his soul to the tip of his prick, even as his mind uselessly tried to rebel against the concept.

He relaxed every part of his body, prepared himself to receive and swallow Seethlaw's seed, waited for the telltale pulsing in the thick prick...

"Ringil..." Like a plea wrenched out of Seethlaw, tight and nearly painful-sounding. "My beautiful... Be—"

Ringil blinked when suddenly, the cool fingers were pulling his head away, and Seethlaw's prick was slipping out of his mouth. _What...?_

He understood when the first spurt of semen landed on his cheek.

And he smiled then.

He closed his eyes, and he smiled in complete, profound serenity, _again_, as Seethlaw let out small, desperate cries, and painted his face with come, and twisted his hair so tight it _hurt_ but Ringil didn't care. He _couldn't_ care, not when he was being branded, being owned, being claimed, by the one being he had ever _wanted_ to belong to.

_"Be mine,"_ Seethlaw had begged and ordered, and indeed, that was all Ringil desired.

When no more hot seed came his way, and Seethlaw's hands started to shake in his hair, Ringil opened his one eye that wasn't coated in sticky come, and looked up.

His heart turned over.

Seethlaw was staring down at him with so many emotions flooding out of his dark gaze, it stole Ringil's breath away. The dwenda said nothing for once, but he didn't need to: the gentleness and carefulness with which he dragged a clean thumb over Ringil's closed eye, spoke so loudly that Ringil found himself trembling under his own overload of feelings and sensations.

When Seethlaw pulled on his chin, Ringil didn't know where he found the strength to stand, but he did. When Seethlaw brought their faces together and the tip of a flickering tongue licked the cooling come from Ringil's lips, Ringil whimpered.

When that tongue demanded entrance into his mouth, he sighed deeply, and gratefully, happily opened it.

They hadn't kissed before fucking, but this one made up for a lifetime of missing that one person Ringil had so desperately been looking for. Everything, _everything_ was right: the taste of Seethlaw's mouth, seasoned with that of his semen, the press of the long firm lips against Ringil's, the dance of their tongues discovering each other, exploring each other's mouth - and still, always, Seethlaw's hand in Ringil's hair, holding him in place as though Ringil might try to escape otherwise, even though that was the last thing on his mind.

_You're mine,_ Seethlaw was saying.

_I'm yours,_ Ringil tried to convey.

He meant it: whether as a full companion or as a side-dish, however Seethlaw wanted him, Ringil would be his. He already knew his pride would rebel against the concept between two encounters, but he also already knew he would do anything Seethlaw asked of him anyway.

It only occurred to him now, in an unpleasant shock, that he had no idea whether Seethlaw had another partner already, maybe even a wife and children. If so... All his life, he had hated the way his father fucked other women left and right. He had seen how much it hurt his mother, no matter how she tried to hide it. The idea of being one of those 'other women'... It made him sick to his stomach, even as he opened his mouth wider to let Seethlaw's tongue plunge deeper into his throat, because when all was said and done, he couldn't refuse Seethlaw, couldn't refuse to give him what he asked for, no matter how much he knew he might hate himself for it later on.

Seethlaw broke the kiss then. He was frowning slightly. He ran the back of his free hand down Ringil's face, and asked gently, but in a tone that didn't brook any disagreement, "Something is troubling you. What is it?"

Ringil didn't want to answer. He didn't want to look like he was prying into Seethlaw's private life, like he thought he had any right to enquire about anything that wasn't strictly them and the sex they would be having whenever Seethlaw chose to. He couldn't help feeling like he was overstepping his bounds, already thinking of himself as even so much as a occasional lover, let alone anything more.

But Seethlaw had asked, so he was bound to answer. "Are you married? Partnered?"

He had expected surprise, maybe even annoyance, or - though not really, that one - embarrassment. What he got instead was a long, thoughtful stare, even as Seethlaw started, almost mindlessly, mechanically, cleaning the come off Ringil's face with his sleeve, which he had pulled over his wrist.

His other hand, still, was pressed into Ringil's hair at the back of his head...

"Married," Seethlaw finally said, "no. Never. No children either, in case you were wondering." And then something fragile appeared deep in his dark, shimmering gaze, even if it didn't reflect in his voice, which turned only a little steelier. "Partnered... Well, that will be for you to decide, won't it?"

Ringil briefly stopped breathing.

Seethlaw kissed him again, gently, softly, pulled back, and whispered, "But don't do it here and now. Take your time." And then his voice cracked as well, finally, barely but so loudly to Ringil's overly-focused ears. "Either way you decide, I want you to be absolutely damn sure."

Ringil already _was_ absolutely damn sure, but he understood what Seethlaw meant. He nodded. Still, he had a point to make, so before he could stop himself, he reached forward and captured Seethlaw's lips in a demanding kiss.

He felt the dwenda smile against his mouth. He felt the long fingers which had cleaned his face trace their way down his throat, over his chest and his stomach, to his groin where his prick was both mourning and accepting the lack of attention it was receiving. They briefly enveloped it, before reaching even further down and cupping his balls, weighing them.

"Did you have any urgent plans for this afternoon?" Seethlaw murmured.

Ringil was already slightly panting again. "Finding my hotel room?"

"You can do that tonight. In the meantime, my own room is only a couple of stairs up from here."

Ringil grinned, and then a concern insinuated itself in his mind. "What about Pelmarag?"

"Hmm?" Seethlaw seemed confused. "What _about_ Pel?"

"Won't he mind losing one of his waiters?"

The long white lips bent again in a gentle half-mocking, half-reproaching way which filled Ringil's stomach with popping bubbles. "I'm the owner, remember? And the midday rush is long over anyway." The smile took on that predatory glint which Ringil would never have enough of. "I was already off-duty when he came to tell me he had a customer I might want to check out."

... _Oh._

Ringil blinked, dumbstruck. It wasn't often that someone managed to steal all his words, but it seemed these damn dwenda had a natural talent for it...

Then his brain came back to its senses, remembered Seethlaw's offer, and he abruptly felt giddy with anticipation. A room? A _bed!?_ Oh hell, _yes!_ A hungry grin pulled his lips back. He raised his chin, tried for a smirk instead, just for the kick of knowing Seethlaw would have to re-ascertain their place because of it, and asked, "Can I expect a hard" — he slowed his voice to a lustful, taunting drawl, leaned the emphasis on each word — "deep, proper fucking if I follow you upstairs?"

He saw the fire rage in the dark eyes. He saw the way the white lips twitched.

He felt the heat sheet almost violently up into his belly and chest, and down into his thighs, when Seethlaw answered in a whisper, "Impatient, impatient."

* * *


	7. Claimed

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Not fond of "See" as Seethlaw's nickname, but, well, it's canonical, and it's no worse that any alternative I can think of...

Seethlaw didn't fuck him. "You shouldn't have asked for it," was his only explanation when Ringil whined about it.

Or more precisely, he didn't fuck him _right away._ First, he indulged him in other, more surprising ways.

For example, Ringil knew he sometimes had strange reactions when getting hit in some places. He had never, however, considered asking for or accepting offers of spanking during sexual play. Seethlaw didn't offer, didn't ask; he just tried it once - and Ringil was stunned at the intensity of his own reaction.

"You have such a perfect arse for that, you know," Seethlaw was saying in an almost fond tone. His hand came down again, slapping hard on an already quite abused cheek - before curving around it and caressing it. "So nice and meaty."

Ringil moaned into the mattress he was kneeling on, entirely naked and finally free from all his clothes, with his head down on a pillow and his hips high up in the air. He felt himself uselessly, reflexively, pump the air twice. His prick was rock-hard and leaking between his widely spread legs, but Seethlaw was ignoring it entirely, and had made it clear that Ringil wasn't to touch it either. So instead, Gil bunched his hands into the sheets on either side of his shoulders, bit his lips, and waited for Seethlaw's next move, never knowing whether it would bring the sting of another blow, or the nearly unbearable gentleness of another fondle.

"I could do this forever, it feels like," Seethlaw was now saying, almost as though he were only talking to himself. His fingers had trailed down to the back of Ringil's thighs, as they'd so often done over the last, what, hour? They raked through the thin hair there, and then petted it, slowly and with the whole of the palm and the pad of the fingers. "So beautiful."

Ringil cried out when the next slap immediately followed, with no warning whatsoever, on his other cheek.

And then he hissed when the burning stinging was switched to a kiss from cold lips. Seethlaw had pulled a cooling pad from a drawer when they'd arrived, and Ringil had quickly discovered that the dwenda knew quite a few different ways to put it to good use. He _whined_ like a fucking kid getting his first hand job when Seethlaw's chilled tongue licked its way around one heated arse cheek, and then the other, and then - oh gods - pushed in-between just long enough to tickle his hole.

"Fuck, See..." He wasn't sobbing, not quite.

Not quite _yet._ He could tell that he was definitely going that way, and he guessed that it was exactly what Seethlaw wanted - and in turn, what Ringil wanted to give the dwenda. But it would have to be wrenched from him; he wasn't going to make it ea—

"Oh, _gods!_"

The cold lips had just deposited an ice cube - a fucking ice cube! - over the base of his spine, and now they were dragging it over one of his burning arse cheeks. The result was...

"Too much, gods, See, too much, too good, don't stop, please..."

It was too much, and not enough. It was too much pain, the contrast between that freezing cold against his red-hot skin, and that meant too much pleasure and relief in turn - and yet, it was still _not enough_ to make him come.

Even when that wicked tongue pushed what was left of the ice cube against his arsehole, and then slipped it _into_ it, creating yet another maelstrom of cold and hot and pain and pleasure unlike anything Ringil had ever experienced, it was _still_ not enough.

"So beautiful, Gil." Now that Seethlaw wasn't using his mouth to tease Ringil anymore, he was back to praising him. "If only you could see yourself." _Yeah, with my red arse in the air, and my hole leaking cold water_ \- he could feel it sliding down his thigh, thin trickle of delight adding itself to the already overwhelming symphony.

But then he yelled in true displeasure when Seethlaw's cold, _cold_ hand finally grabbed his prick, hanging heavy and hot between his legs. "Seethlaw, fuck, no, _ow!_" This wasn't nice pain at all; it was ball-shrivelling, boner-killing agony. And indeed, he could feel his dick softening already, trying to escape the icy hold on it, but Seethlaw wasn't letting it go, was only wrapping his fingers tighter around it.

For a hot second, Ringil seriously thought about calling it quits.

He seriously considered slapping the offending hand away, and standing up, and pulling his clothes back on, and leaving this room forever, because fuck, _this wasn't fun anymore_ and he didn't have to endure it!

... And then he realised.

He understood.

He let go.

He muffled his sobs - oh, _now_ he was crying all right - into the pillow. He renewed his grip on the sheets. And he tried to relax his muscles everywhere as best he could: in his arse, in his thighs, in his belly. Show the dwenda that he was relinquishing _all_ control to him, was _trusting_ him even in the depths of such an unwelcome ache.

He knew he'd had the right reaction when he heard, despite the blood pounding in his ears, a frayed intake of air behind him, and the cold hand finally released him. More than anything, though, it was the trembling in the soft, musical voice which told him in no uncertain terms that Seethlaw was as gone into this as Gil himself.

"Fuck, Ringil... How do you exist?"

It was a rhetorical question, asked in an awed whisper, which sent both Gil's heart and stomach stumbling, and brought fresh tears to his eyes - but didn't rob him of his voice.

"Same maker as the one who created you, I'd say."

He heard the small, incredulous chuckle, and grinned to himself. There were two of them here, playing this game, and he had no intention of being so easily outwitted when it came to simple words.

Seethlaw laid a finger on Ringil's hole, and even allowed Ringil to push back against it. His voice was almost worryingly serious when he asked, "Do you still wish to be fucked hard and deep?"

Ringil almost came right there and then, which would have been a terrible shame, because the minutes that followed were everything he could have dreamt of and more.

He watched over his shoulder as Seethlaw, just as naked as Ringil himself, his ivory-white skin gleaming in the low glow of the bedside lamps, slowly positioned himself, kneeling right behind Ringil, his eyes never letting go of Ringil's gaze. And then he started playing with Ringil's hole in earnest, and Ringil's head fell back on his pillow, as he surrendered to the onslaught of torturous, delicious sensations.

Seethlaw used everything at his disposal.

He used his mouth a few times. The flat of his now-warm tongue would run from the back of Gil's ball sack, along his perineum, over his hole, all the way to the base of his spine, and Ringil would cry out in warning, because this was almost too much. At other times, it was the tip of that wicked tongue which would, without warning, flicker against his hole, making it twitch, helping it relax.

He used his fingers too, of course, coating them with some thick gel which smelled of fresh herbs, and rubbing them around and across the sensitive hole and the skin around it. He pushed them into it, too, always without warning, sometimes only one, sometimes two at a time. He left them in and rubbed against Ringil's prostate, making him whine in despair as he desperately fought to hold back the ever-threatening oncoming orgasm. Or he pumped them in and out, teaching Ringil's hole to accept their presence, to welcome the intrusion, to unwind around it and around anything else Seethlaw might decide to stick in there.

Such as his prick, for example. Seethlaw only used its head for now, repeating the same motion as with his fingers, dragging it around and across and pushing very briefly against the loosened hole, but never entering it in earnest - not yet, Ringil understood, not yet.

Quite frankly, Ringil didn't need half as much preparation as this. In fact, with enough lube, he wouldn't have needed any preparation at all, so aroused had he been already by the time they had reached the bedroom. But this wasn't preparation at all, was it? It was its own thing, its own game. It was another way for Seethlaw to make Ringil squirm, to make him _want_ and then deny him, to delay the promised release and force Ringil to hold himself back. It was once again Seethlaw asserting his ownership over Ringil's body and pleasure, telling him in no uncertain terms that Ringil had no choice but to take what was given him and to give what was demanded of him.

And Ringil loved it as much as he had loved everything else Seethlaw had done to him before. Even when he was finally turned into nothing more than a quivering, begging mass of pure _need_, he still felt nothing but gratitude and overwhelming desire for that creature doing all those things to him.

"Good man. You're so wonderful, my beautiful Ringil..."

Ringil had long stopped answering Seethlaw's praises; even a whine was too much concerted effort to make. But the words still twisted his heart and pricked his groin as sharply and sweetly as they ever did.

And then, suddenly, Seethlaw was positioning his prick's head over Ringil's hole once more - but this time, in one long, powerful move, he entered Ringil to the hilt, and Ringil felt more than he heard the strangled cry of sheer relief and happiness which popped in his throat as his perfectly relaxed body welcomed the long-awaited invasion.

Seethlaw sheathed himself fully into Ringil, and, bending over, draped himself over Ringil's bundled-up form, enclosing him in his arms, his wide chest covering Ringil's sweat-slick back. Once again, it felt at once like ownership and protection and adoration, and Ringil's heart didn't know what to do with all those emotions flooding his system, so it just thumped hard and fast in his chest.

And when Seethlaw's nose went digging into Ringil's mass of dishevelled hair until it found the nape of his neck and his teeth could gently bite down on it, Ringil realised that he was literally being claimed like some animals are during sex, but the consideration didn't bother him as he would have thought it ought to until now. Seethlaw was just staking his property out in yet another way - and Ringil, once again, found that he very much, on a fundamental level, _liked_ it.

He liked it just as much as the punishing rhythm Seethlaw proceeded to set, which rendered Ringil incoherent within a few moments, so close had he already been to the edge for so long.

"My beautiful..." Seethlaw's voice was low and gasping in his ear. "My wonderful Ringil..."

Ringil could only moan in answer, overwhelmed in his body as much as in his soul.

"I-I want..." Seethlaw was starting to lose his mind too, and Ringil tried pointlessly to spread himself even wider, to pull Seethlaw even deeper into him.

"I want... I want to feel you... My strong, amazing Ringil, I want to feel you clench around my prick deep in you..."

That started it; Ringil's laboured breath caught in his throat as he felt the telltale strands begin to coil tight in his thighs and groin. There was no coming back from this now.

It seemed Seethlaw had noticed his reaction and guessed what it meant, because suddenly his voice was so much stronger again as he continued, "I want to feel your body buck in my hold like a wild animal without me even touching your dick."

The thought that they were very much on the way to accomplishing just that drew a rough, drawn-out groan out of Ringil. He couldn't remember the last time he'd come without his prick being stimulated. He had been a long, long time ago, for sure, back when he was even more a bundle of hormones than he still was now.

His orgasm was mounting, circling higher and closer, as Seethlaw bit him on the neck once again, and sucked on his earlobe, and held him even tighter with the arm wrapped around his chest...

Ringil realised the dwenda was oh so close too when the soft voice let out a hint of pleading in its next words, "Come on, Ringil, my wonder! I want..." A gasp. "I want to breathe you in..." He was having troubles finding enough air to keep speaking now. "With all my senses... as you lose yourself... to the pleasure I give— "

Ringil yelled as he came, as he gave Seethlaw what he was asking for in so many ways.

He yelled, and shook hard, and saw white, and nearly choked when seemingly all his muscles contracted and his chest wouldn't let his lungs pull air in anymore. And still, all along, throughout the waves after drowning waves of ecstasy pulling him under again and again, he never lost the awareness of Seethlaw's presence. Seethlaw, draped over his back. Seethlaw, holding him tight in those long, thin arms. Seethlaw, impaling him deep and hard with his own white prick.

Seethlaw, who had given him this, and was here with him to experience it.

* * *

He had no idea when Seethlaw came. He just knew that when he became somewhat properly aware of himself and the world again, he noticed that Seethlaw's prick had retreated, leaving a thin stream of come trailing down Ringil's thigh much like the ice cube water had done earlier - but far more importantly, leaving him feeling unbearably _empty_. It wasn't just his body mourning the absence of a dick up his arse; it was... His mind was too befuddled by his afterglow to stop the comparison from forming itself: it was his soul which mourned the absence of Seethlaw himself.

And that was stupid, because Seethlaw was right here, still kneeling behind him. One of his cool hands was on Ringil's hip, and Gil used it to anchor himself back into the reality of his body, of this world, this room, this situation - the truth of the existence of this dwenda whose other hand was running small, gentle circles over Ringil's abused arse cheek, waiting so incredibly patiently for him to come back, and telling him so too.

"Take your time, my beautiful Gil..." He meant it; it was clear in his touch, in his tone. "Relax, and turn to me when you're ready."

A groan ripped out of Ringil, briefly cutting through the soothing babble, when he tried to move his arms. His entire body felt painfully unresponsive, heavy and locked in that kneeling, head-down posture.

Seethlaw guessed, or understood without words, and came to his aid again. His own movements were strong and assured as he firmly yet so carefully pulled here and pushed there, until Ringil was lying on his back, legs extended, arms spread bonelessly on either side of him.

And still there was Seethlaw, sitting cross-legged next to him now, whispering more of those nonsensical endearments, while tracing arabesques all over Ringil's chest and brushing back his hair...

* * *


	8. Given

Ringil realised he'd gone to sleep when he woke up. He was alone on Seethlaw's bed, with a blanket wrapped tight around his naked body. It wasn't night yet, but the light streaming through the windows was much thinner than it had been that afternoon as they fucked.

Seethlaw was nowhere to be seen, but Ringil's clothes were folded and waiting on a chair next to the bed, and there was a pot of ointment over them. Ringil cleaned up in the attached bathroom, and attended to his smarting arse with the gel Seethlaw had left him. Whatever was in it, it did miracles, nearly instantly stopping the low-burning fire, and allowing Ringil to dress and move freely, without even any discomfort when sitting down on something.

He picked his bag from on top of the dresser next to the door where Seethlaw had obviously put it before leaving, because Ringil quite clearly remembered just dropping it wherever as soon as they'd entered the room, so busy had he been with once again pulling his clothes off and freeing his aching prick.

He opened the door and looked around. The corridor outside led to more closed doors on one side, and to stairs going down on the other; there was also quite a bit of noise coming from there. That was the way to the shop - and to Seethlaw...

Carefully, silently, uncertain of what he might meet, and what he _wanted_ to meet, he made his way down the steps. They took him to another long corridor, with the shop's room occupying one side, and a couple of doors open on the other side, including one which burst with the unmistakable scents and sounds of a kitchen.

He stuck his head in; there was only one dwenda there, busily occupied over the various stations and tables. Ringil had a vague impression that he should know the guy's name, but he'd be damned if he remembered it.

"Hmm, hello?"

The dwenda barely threw him a glance over his shoulder. "You hungry?"

Ringil was about to say no, when his stomach grumbled, very loudly. "Er..."

"Sit." That was an order, not a suggestion, and it was accompanied with a jut of the chin towards a small table set in a far corner, well out of the way. Ringil mentally shrugged and obeyed. He could always pay later. Come to think of it, he hadn't paid for his lunch either, had he?

"Ah, you're awake, good." That was Seethlaw, who had rushed into the kitchen, and was now ambling his way to Ringil. Ringil blushed like a school kid when the dwenda took his chin in his hand, pulled his face up, and kissed him, right there and then, under the cook's gaze. "Ash will fix you something to eat, and then you can leave, or you can stay, as you wish." There was something unusually vulnerable in the dark gaze as it looked down at Gil. "I don't have time to talk right now, but I want this to be clear: _you_ will be deciding what happens next. Understood?"

Ringil's throat closed up. He could only nod.

Seethlaw nodded back, turned around to grab a couple of plates Ash - ah, yes, Ashgrin, Ringil remembered now - had prepared, and slipped back out of the kitchen as quickly and stealthily as he'd come in.

As soon as he was gone, Ashgrin crossed the room in his turn and deposited a bowl of delicious-smelling stew under his nose. "Eat, _then_ decide", he said in an almost toneless voice.

Ringil blinked, and couldn't help smirking when he remembered another detail Seethlaw had mentioned. "So you and Pelmarag are the silent one and the chatty one, huh?"

That got him a small smile in return. "Something like that," Ashgrin confirmed, before going to fetch him a jug of water.

He stopped talking after that, and Ringil didn't bother him; it was quite obvious the rush hour had started. The orders kept coming in, piling one under the other on the screen on the wall next to Ashgrin's main preparation station. They were automatically read as they arrived, in what sounded to Ringil like the same voice as his female holo greeter's - Seethlaw's sister, right? He would have to ask for her name somed—

_So we're staying, huh?_

He nearly strangled himself on the last spoonful of mushroom stew. When had he made that decision!?

_Oh, please, like there was ever any doubt._

He tried to argue with himself, tried to find some repartee, if only for the principle of the matter. He was quite annoyed when he failed to do so, and so resorted to another tactic.

He raised his voice, and asked in what he hoped was a sufficiently detached tone, "So anyway, how many of Seethlaw's fucks have you met and fed?"

Once again, Ashgrin barely threw him a glance over his shoulder and kept working. "A few."

Ringil grimaced. He was just another one in a long line; it didn't mean anything. _Oh? What about Seethlaw, then? He's also the latest one on a list so damn long you couldn't write it down if your life depended on it. Yet, he's different, isn't he?_

Ringil refrained from shrugging. Sure, yes, Seethlaw was different, somehow. But that was probably because he was a dwenda, or something.

_Or something, uh-huh._

He swallowed as he accepted to face the truth... It wasn't about Seethlaw being a dwenda and he knew it. It was about the way the man could look at Ringil and make him forget that anything outside of the two of them existed. He'd never met anyone like _that._

He was so lost in his thoughts and emotions, he didn't hear Ashgrin speaking up again until the dwenda was almost done. Shaking himself up, he could only reply, "I didn't quite catch that, sorry?"

"I said," Ashgrin repeated patiently, "that it's the first time I hear him give his fuck of the day such a choice, let alone so explicitly."

Ringil's brain ground to a halt. "... What?"

Ashgrin brought him something white and orange with a small spoon sticking out of it. "He's picked customers up before, with or without Pel goading him into it whenever he thinks he needs to get laid again already. But when they come back down, he always knows exactly whether he wants to see them again or not." The dwenda pinned Ringil under his dark, empty gaze, and tilted his head, as though to better examine some strange specimen. "I don't know what's special about you, but clearly, you're not like the others."

Oh... Ringil swallowed, looked down, said nothing.

He was almost done with his dessert - some kind of thick cream cheese mixed with a fruit sauce just the right level of sour and sweet - when Seethlaw took a minute to come stand next to him. Uninvited, he dropped a finger into the bowl, gathered some of the mix, and brought it up to his mouth.

_Fuck._ He wasn't even making _that_ much of a show of it, and yet Ringil felt himself harden already again under the table.

Gruffly, he snapped, "Trying to influence me? I thought the decision was mine?"

Seethlaw lost his composure at that. "I..." He wiped his now-clean but wet finger on Ringil's napkin. He was looking away, and he seemed like he wanted to run away but didn't know what to say to free himself from the conversation he had started. "I apologise." He glanced nervously at Ringil. "I'll leave you alone, then."

It was unnerving, watching him seem so unsure of himself, after he'd so easily taken charge of everything all afternoon. It was unnerving... and reassuring, because it implied that this, all this, did mean quite a lot to him as well.

Ringil cleared his throat, glued his gaze down to his almost-empty bowl, ignored the fire creeping into his cheeks, and muttered, "I mean, it's not like I needed influencing anyway. I'd already figured out what I wanted, after all."

"And... what you want... is?" Gods, but the way hope and fear were battling it in Seethlaw's soft, trembling voice, were going to be the end of Ringil's resolve not to say the stupidest things. There was no doubt left to have that he was no more another fuck on Seethlaw's list than the dwenda was just another notch on Ringil's metaphorical bedpost.

Ringil shrugged, to earn himself enough time to manufacture a falsely detached attitude. "Well, I'd be a fool to let the best lay I've ever had get away from me, wouldn't I?"

He didn't dare look up. He was quite sure Seethlaw had stopped breathing, though. He continued.

"Let's be clear: I'm not staying _here._ I'm going to my hotel room, if only because the Embassy might turn the town upside-down to search for me if I don't register there today. But..." And now he could look up, into Seethlaw's almost painfully beautiful and relieved smile. "I'm coming back, tomorrow, the day after tomorrow, I dunno. Or you're coming over when you have a moment. Or we meet somewhere else, whatever. Just..."

He swallowed. Stared deep into the empty eyes. Looked for the exact right way to say what he meant. "I... want you to have me for as long as you feel like it."

A ghost of Seethlaw's predatory grin reappeared on his lips. He whispered, "What if I never feel like letting you go?"

Ringil met his challenge head-on, replied with his own, "Maybe I intend to do whatever it takes to ensure you never _can_ let me go?"

Seethlaw's eyes widened in shock. His breath caught in his throat. And then he laughed - a light, airy thing, devoid of anything but simple enjoyment. He shook his head. "As I said, the decision is yours, now and forever. If that's what you want to apply your agency to..." That reassured smile illuminated his perfect features again. "Then I certainly have no desire to tell you otherwise."

_Stay. Be mine. I want you to want to be mine._

Ringil nodded, and grinned back. "Glad we agree, then." _I'll be yours, for as long as you'll have me._

Seethlaw wrapped his hands around Ringil's jaws, and swooped down for another stolen kiss.

Then his mouth moved to Ringil's ear, into which he whispered very softly, "I should go back to work, and you should leave this place before I give into the temptation to tie you, naked and spread-eagled, on my bed to wait for me." Ringil's prick kicked in his underwear at this prospect. The lewd grin Seethlaw gave him as he retreated told him the damn dwenda knew exactly what effect his words had had. "Just note down your hotel's address and..." He bit gently onto Ringil's lower lip. "Who knows what other ideas I might get?"

And then he was gone, and Ringil's prick was straining, and his heart felt far too big to be contained in his chest.

He had no clue what he had just signed up for. He just knew he hadn't felt so incredibly _alive_ in a very, very long time...

* * *

The End

* * *

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have more ideas for these two in this universe. Let me know if you'd be interested in a mini-series, or if there's something in particular you'd like to see, or whatever :)


End file.
